After rekindling audiences’ love for silent movies with his Oscar-winning work in “The Artist,” French actor Jean Dujardin turns to another bygone movie era in the 1970s-set crime drama “The Connection.”

“I know most of those movies starring [Alain] Delon, [Jean-Paul] Belmondo and [Lino] Ventura by heart,” says Mr. Dujardin. “So I enjoyed telling myself I’m going to act in a film set at a time where there’s not one scene with a mobile phone, that I’ll be wearing woolen ties and driving old cars like the [Citroën] DS.”